CHI95LA278 · Air Tractor AT-400
Air Tractor AT-400 · Accident: loss of control in flight while maneuvering
From COOTER, MO (no airport) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- CHI95LA278
- Event typeAccident: someone killed or seriously injured, or the aircraft substantially damaged (NTSB definition). Incident: an occurrence that affected or could have affected safety, short of that. Glossary
- Accident
- InvestigationHow far the investigation had got when the record was published: preliminary, ongoing, final or completed. Unknown where the source does not say. Glossary
- Completed
- API-reported fatalities
- 1 · all aircraft and ground
- Ground fatalities
- 0
- OperationWhat kind of flying it was, grouped by the rules it flew under: airline (US Part 121), air taxi and commuter (Part 135), general aviation (Part 91 and similar), military or government. Glossary
- General aviation
- WeatherVisual meteorological conditions (VMC): good enough to fly by looking outside. Instrument conditions (IMC): cloud or low visibility, flying by instruments. Glossary
- Visual Meteorological Cond
Air Tractor AT-400
- Aircraft type
- Air Tractor AT-400
- Category
- Airplane
- RegistrationThe aircraft's tail number, such as N12345 or G-ABCD. Registrations are reissued, so the same one years apart can be a different aircraft. Glossary
- N2315Z
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From COOTER, MO (no airport)To not recorded
- Aircraft age
- Not recorded
- Flight rulesThe regulations the flight operated under: in the US, Part 91 (general aviation), Part 121 (airlines), Part 135 (air taxi and commuter) and others; for flights abroad, the NTSB's coarser commercial or non-commercial code. Glossary
- Part 137: Agricultural
- Phase of flightThe stage of the flight when things started to go wrong: standing, taxi, takeoff, initial climb, en route, maneuvering, approach or landing. Glossary
- Maneuvering · aerial application
- First occurrenceThe single coded event the NTSB judges best describes what happened (records from 2008 on). Older records name the first occurrence in the sequence instead. Glossary
- Loss of control in flight
- Also codedOther events the NTSB coded in the sequence, such as a wire strike after a loss of power. Flight Findings uses them for its kinds of event. Glossary
- Stall
- DamageDestroyed: beyond practical repair. Substantial: damage that affects the structure, performance or handling and normally needs major repair. Minor: less than that. Glossary
- Destroyed
Cause areas
- Pilot in command › Stall, inadvertent
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
EXAMINATION OF THE WRECKAGE REVEALED NO EVIDENCE OF PREIMPACT MECHANICAL MALFUNCTION. THE WINGS WERE CRUSHED SYMMETRICALLY AT AN ANGLE CORRESPONDING TO A PITCH OF 90 DEGREES NOSE DOWN. THE PROPELLER RPM GAGE WAS TRAPPED AT 1900 RPM AND THE TORQUE GAGE WAS TRAPPED AT ABOUT 600 FOOT POUNDS. DURING A PERSONAL INTERVIEW A PILOT WHO HAD WORKED CLOSELY WITH THE ACCIDENT PILOT, REPORTED THAT THE ACCIDENT PILOT WOULD TYPICALLY FLY TO A SPRAYING SITE AT 600 TO 700 FEET. HE SAID THE ACCIDENT PILOT WOULD TYPICALLY RETARD THE ENGINE TORQUE TO ABOUT 600 FOOT POUNDS TO PREVENT EXCESSIVE AIRSPEED DURING THE DESCENT TO THE SITE AND WOULD SUBSEQUENTLY NEED TO ADD POWER DURING MANEUVERING.
Probable cause
the pilot inadvertently stalled the airplane. A factor was the reduced power setting.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CHI95LA278
- Event ID
- 20001207X04203
- Case number
- CHI95LA278
- Dataset
- historical-pre2008
- Source SHA-256
- 89e2df6d848e7ab3b42e7d7c7a03ff403303057a26ca04c95b3ea67201c3ce74
Source notes (4)
- Unreviewed is an editorial label, not an investigation status. API-sourced is not report-checked or human-reviewed. Explicit event totals are used without summing aircraft injury tables; onboard allocation is withheld. Unknown values remain unknown. The operation category is mapped from the NTSB-reported FAR part and has not been reviewed.
- Filled from the NTSB case API where the bulk record had no value: investigation status. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date, which is the same as the UTC date the NTSB stores.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 48fce4787a60c1b2bdca0c4d9a0952dbab2a86c65ec64e73ab9db6e3c8383878; retrieved 2026-09-20T23:40:00.605Z.